


Sunrises and Sunsets: the Story of Leonard McCoy

by starsmckirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsmckirk/pseuds/starsmckirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy’s life consisted of sunrises and sunsets. Of bright, sunny, Georgian days and dark, deep night skies. Then everything changed, and it wasn't until he met Jim Kirk that he found some purpose with his life again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunrises and Sunsets: the Story of Leonard McCoy

Leonard McCoy’s life consisted of sunrises and sunsets. Of bright, sunny, Georgian days and dark, deep night skies. In the beginning each sunrise meant a new day. A new part of his life. Yesterday was climbing peach trees. The next day was fishing with his father. 

There was never a fear for the sun to set, for the night to fall. At night the big, wooden McCoy house lit up in the middle of the darkness, comforting and welcoming. 

There was never anxiety for the next day, for the sun to rise high on the sky. Anxieties were forgotten. For the young Leonard McCoy each day was a new adventure.

Then he grew older. He met Jocelyn. Jocelyn made him long for the nights. At night there was no one else there. The distractions that were other people and obligations disappeared as the sun set. During the day there was helping his father repair the roof, working on his paper for med school. At night there was only he and Jocelyn. Wrapped together, tangled in damp sheets, engulfed by the Georgian night. 

Then came the day when Leonard McCoy neither longed for the sunset, or the sunrise. 

“Leonard. There’s nothing you can do. You heard the doctors. Your old man has had his turn.”

“No dad, I’ll find the cure. I swear I will.”

Sunsets and sunrises blended together, he could no longer extinguish between night and day. The longing for the nights with Jocelyn disappeared. The longing for the days of Georgian sun gone for long. Time became his worst enemy. Working till he dropped, time no longer measured in sunsets and sunrises, but measured in the way David McCoy grew weaker and weaker each day.

“Leonard. Please. I can’t take it anymore. I love you with all of my heart; I am so, so proud of you son. I know you will do wonders in the world. I know how many people you will help. “ Tears fell down the cheeks of father and son as David McCoy saw his last sunrise. 

After that Leonard became painfully aware of the setting and rising of the sun. During the day the sun burned too bright, exposing all his flaws, all his wrongdoings. During the night the darkness was too big, too dark for him to handle. He sank deeper and deeper. 

He no longer longed for Jocelyn. She no longer longed for him. Their sacred nights were not longer there. Jocelyn left him; she took it all, in the search of new nights. 

Leonard McCoy had nothing left. It no longer mattered when the sun was up, when the darkness was there. There was nobody left for him to long for, nothing left for him to do. Each passing day, each sleepless night only making him feel emptier and emptier.

“I know how many people you will help.” His father had said.

Leonard couldn’t even help himself. 

But he grabbed those words, he held on to them as tightly as he could. Grabbing and digging and pulling to try to find something left to live for. Something worth waiting for the next sunrise. Something that once again would make sunsets feel as the end of one adventure, but the beginning of another.

He found something. To help. To serve. To heal. To make sure people get to see their sunsets, their sunrises. 

Stepping on to that shuttle headed for Starfleet Academy Leonard was terrified. He was going, taking off, thousands of feet above the ground. Coming closer to the sun than he’d ever been before. Finally, chasing a purpose in life again.

\---------  
Jim was the energy of a thousand suns.

“I was born in space,” he said. 

There was no steady rising and setting of a single sun in space.

“When I was younger, I couldn’t really understand why I even existed.” He whispered in the late San Francisco night.

Jim had not been born with the sun’s steady rise and fall, being there to welcome him into the world.

“I don’t know who my dad was, only know his name and his rank.”

But Jim, Jim Leonard thought. Jim was born to the stars, to the universe. The universe has no constant rise and fall. The universe consists of thousands of millions of stars. Dying stars, fading and disappearing. But also new stars, burning and growing. What was a sunrise to millions of new stars? What was a sunset to the end of a star that once burned so brightly?

With Jim, Leonard discovered a new world, something new to chase. Leonard no longer consisted only of the rise and fall of the Georgian sun, but also the burning of a supernova, the speed of a comet, the vastness and eternity that was space. With Jim, Leonard found life again.


End file.
